


ангел | angel

by novoaa1



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angel Wings, Angst, Blood, Blood and Injury, F/F, Magic, Reader-Insert, Reader-Interactive, Supernatural Elements, Team Dynamics, but definitely let me know if i fucked that one up cause im always tryna improve n stuff, i did my best to keep reader's physical features somewhat arbitrary, reader's a whole badass, reader's an angel! which we love for her, u already know, we love for her, which again, wings and shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22459342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novoaa1/pseuds/novoaa1
Summary: “Then it seems we’re at a disadvantage,” Steve intones, well-trained diplomacy hammered into every facet of his deep tone. “You know who we are, but we don’t—““What Spangles is trying to ask,” comes a muffled voice from the Man of Iron, something that clears as the mask lifts with a succinct whir to reveal Tony Stark, a cranky expression upon his lined features, “is who thehellare you?"You have to resist the urge to smirk as Steve Rogers clenches his oblique jawline, quite evidently peeved at Tony Stark’s bluntness. All the same, you turn to give Tony Stark a quick once-over before darting your gaze back up to meet his, a sparse wave of apathetic distaste falling over you at the sheer arrogance you see displayed proudly in his eyes.“My name is Y/N, though I confess I’m unclear as to how that’s any of your business.”Or: You're an angel residing quietly in the woodlands of modern New York state.Things get complicated (even more so than before, which you consider something of a morbidly impressive accomplishment) when you're tracked by the world-renowned Avengers.
Relationships: Carol Danvers & Reader, Natasha Romanov (Marvel) & Reader, Natasha Romanov (Marvel)/Reader
Comments: 26
Kudos: 274





	1. a curious encounter

**Author's Note:**

> me? writing something entirely different when theres a bajillion other stories and request stuffs i should be working on and havent touched since 'nam? it's more likely than u think
> 
> idk dude i wrote this in a haze one night right before i got this crazy migraine (nicotine withdrawals are MEAN and i would advise never to get into cigs, electronic or not, unless you're ready for that kind of unpleasantness because im only 11 days off it and it's already made me cry on multiple different occasions. and also the whole migraine thing sdkfjd)
> 
> let me know waht you think? cause i didnt wanna spend any more time on it than i already did cause i didnt know if anyone else would wanna read something like this

The way you think about it, you see things differently from everyone else. 

And you don’t mean that in the conventional (or even the markedly less conventional) way; some prominent examples of that being pessimism (particularly as the antithesis of optimism), theological belief (or lack thereof), and mortal bureaucracy (which you suppose boils more down to morality than anything else at the very end of it all, though that’s a conversation for another day). 

You mean it in the sense that, awful things have happened to you, and they’ve changed absolutely _everything_. 

You’re not upset enough about it to be actively suicidal (—at least, not anymore), but that doesn’t change the reality you’ve been made to accept throughout the years that the very groundwork of who you are has irrevocably changed… that _you_ have irrevocably changed.

Really, though—with what you can do, with what you _are_ ; you wrestle every day against the bone-deep compulsion to flee, to leave and never return to this strange land of mortals lest you wish to invite upon yourself an encore of your harrowing trials ever again. 

(And, really, you’re hard-pressed to find a single reason—no matter how outlandish or unlikely—you would ever dare to enact such a thing.)

You suppose that that’s why, when you hear the whirring vehicle approach (one that’s very clearly far too evolved in the technological sense to belong to a commonplace civilian) from several cubits out, you do not make to retreat.

In fact, you do not move at all. 

A short spell later, you hear the self-assured footsteps of an unmistakable quartet (one pair quite clearly highly-trained, while the other three are markedly less so) dismounting from an idling vehicle onto solid ground. Simultaneously in the heavens, two projectiles (one industrial, the other not-quite humanoid yet comparable enough to overlook the discrepancies) swoop audibly down from the heavens without an ounce of stealth. 

Both parties are variable yet indubitably united, and set unmistakably upon a direct path to unearth you where you linger out in the thick of the forest. Oneida County, if the numerous wooden man-made signs you’ve glimpsed amongst the various worn-down paths winding through the woodlands are to be believed. 

Still, you’ve never been one to remain idle for long.

In moments, you’ve taken to the air—winging it just below the treetops, of course; you’re not entirely mindless. You hum a quiet tune to yourself as the damp breeze ruffles the fleece-white feathers of your wings—a pleasant sensation, to be sure. You don’t touch down until you reach a pleasant (but somewhat less-travelled) clearing due east off the main path, the clumsy footsteps of your pursuers positively deafening to your preternaturally-attuned ears. 

You retract your wings as something of an afterthought, pointedly resisting the instinctive urge to whine as they meld effortlessly through your plainclothes and into the hairless scar-ridden skin between your shoulder blades. Your anatomy is, outwardly, much like unto that of a typical human’s (save for the wings, of course)—perfect for blending in when necessary.

Your irises of vibrant magenta remain so, which you know to be a decidedly unusual pupillary color within the realm of human biology. Still, there’s nothing to be done about it now, and from what you’ve seen, humans have grown quite fond of effecting changes to their physical appearance (temporary or otherwise) over the past decade or so. Thus, the conspicuous shade coloring your otherwise prosaic-appearing optics could just as easily be yet another fleshly oddity of the human race… a colored contact, they call it, if you’re not mistaken. 

Beyond that, however, you appear to the untrained eye no different from any other human creature. Even your clothes, plain and thoroughly washed (—courtesy of the rather enchanting freshwater creek just a short flight from here—) seem painstakingly ordinary: 

A pair of black denim jeans you’d absconded with from a curious emporium called “Levi’s”; a similarly black tunic (the man from the Satanic bazaar called “Hot Topic" had christened it a “T-shirt”) embellished with a strange motif of bloodied blades and skulls beneath the word “Slipknot” in spindled font; and a queer, charcoal-grey doublet of seemingly popular footwear called “high-top Converse” laced up securely on either foot.

(It’s almost laughable, how paradoxical it all is—the heavenly angel adorned in ravens’ colors; a paradigm of virtue clad in the raiment of Hades himself.

Well, you aren’t. A paradigm of virtue, that is. 

Truth be told, you’re not quite sure you ever were.)

Your chasers in question reveal themselves in such a way you speculate is to render you confounded—quiet steps, elongated breaths, measured movements. 

(There’s only one who succeeds—a woman, you think, though you’re loath to admit that you can’t quite be sure. 

Whoever she is—or, whoever _they_ are, they’re good. _Very_ good.)

The first to reveal himself (standing directly before you at the 12 o’clock position) is a tall, muscular human male wearing a singularly ridiculous-looking suit comprised of painfully patriotic American blues, whites, and reds. 

He holds a matching shield forged into a faultless circular disc (proto-adamantium—a near indestructible derivative of vibranium, your hyper-trained eyes deduce in moments), harnessed to his left forearm with visibly weathered russet leather straps—his eyes are cold and blue like only the purest Blue Lace Agate, and his clean-shaven jawline is angular and defined. 

You know him instantly—Steve Rogers. Or, Captain America, depending on your persuasion. (Personally, you think the man’s glorified moniker is rather imbecilic.)

The rest of his team—the self-proclaimed Avengers, you recall—appear quickly directly thereafter, as if each were waiting for Steve Rogers’ cue. 

A man in an armored cardinal-red-and-gold battle suit lands just a handful of paces to the left of where you stand, pitching a vaguely circular hodgepodge of dampened dirt, lifeless browning leaves, and wiry wooden twigs up into the air around his bulky ironclad shins—you think that the man inside the ostentatious ensemble (one Tony Stark—the Iron Man) means to intimidate you. 

You make it a point not to give him the satisfaction of flinching: not when he lands, nor when his war suit whirs loudly throughout the clearing just moments later. 

Another figure appears at the edge of the clearing, at approximately 2 o’clock to Steve Rogers’ twelve: a decidedly abecedarian, Slavic-looking young woman dressed all in blood-red leathers from head to toe with wide bedazzling eyes that flicker a lurid scarlet. Almost instantaneously, you identify her to be an enchantress—one that possesses a profoundly powerful breed of crimson alchemy, at that. The very same magick-user who reportedly fought alongside Steve Rogers and Tony Stark and all the rest of the so-called “Avengers" in the famed battle for Sokovia. 

(She’s likely the most dangerous of them all, you think—both for the sheer magnitude of wizardry she possesses, and the chronic degree of ignorance with which she wields it.)

Not a second passes before yet another figure (dressed in patriotic reds and blues to mirror that of Steve Rogers’ notorious combat uniform), this one ever-so-slightly less mortal (but invariably human just the same) lands to the right of where you stand in rather close proximity, much like Tony Stark had done moments earlier. 

Still, her arrival is markedly less brazen than the Man of Iron’s, and the soles of her navy-blue boots disrupt only a fairly minimal berth’s worth of dirt and twigs and leaves around her. 

Consequently, your eyes flicker briefly to her in response, your interest somewhat piqued. 

You know her to be a newer Avenger, with blonde hair and a sharp square-ish jawline and chestnut-brown eyes that spark incrementally with something like a warning as they unabashedly appraise you. 

She’s Carol Danvers, formerly known simply as ‘Vers’ amongst the Kree, now the widely proclaimed “Captain Marvel"—powerful, emotion-driven, impulsive. 

Next comes a sandy-haired man who looks more bureaucratic intelligence agent than world-renowned hero clad in baggy black trousers and a subtly-armored bodice (emblazoned with a lilac-purple downwards-facing Chevron upon the chest). 

It’s inconspicuous enough, you suppose, all things considered. 

(He positions himself just to Steve Rogers’ right side—roughly 10 o’clock to Steve Rogers’ twelve and the Maximoff twin’s two.)

Just the same, the complex well-equipped compound bow gripped tightly in one seasoned fist and the adequately-stocked quiver protruding visibly over one broad shoulder (not even to _mention_ the acute fine-pointed steel arrow pointed directly at your jugular) informs all too flagrantly upon who this man is—Clint Barton. Archer. Codename: Hawkeye. 

Steve Rogers begins to talk, then, all boisterous confidence and self-assured integrity—it irks you for a great number of reasons, but perhaps what nags you most prominently is the knowledge that someone is missing from the bumbling quartet that bounded all-too-fearlessly from the foliage… someone important, in all likelihood.

There had been four of them; you _know_ that to be true, because your senses don't lie. They never have. 

Regardless, you do your best to take it in stride as Steve Rogers embarks on what you think is meant to be a short commencement that inspires confidence (but merely leaves you feeling decidedly more on-edge than before): “Hi, there. I’m Steve, and this is my team. We’re not here to hurt you. Do you know who we are?”

You tilt your head ever-so-slightly, pouting your lips and feigning mockery even as your celestial ears strain to listen for the last member of this congregation. 

“I do,” you reply, your earthly accent near perfect (though tinged with a strange combination of what most humans would consider to sound much like British and Polynesian combined). “You call yourselves 'the Avengers.’ Heroes of the Earth.”

“Then it seems we’re at a disadvantage,” Steve intones, well-trained diplomacy hammered into every facet of his deepened tone. “You know who we are, but we don’t—“

“What Spangles is trying to ask,” comes a muffled voice from the Man of Iron, something that clears as the mask lifts with a succinct whir to reveal Tony Stark, a cranky expression upon his lined features, “is who the _hell_ are you?"

You have to resist the urge to smirk as Steve Rogers clenches his oblique jawline, quite evidently peeved at Tony Stark’s bluntness. All the same, you turn to give Tony Stark a quick once-over before darting your gaze back up to meet his, a sparse wave of apathetic distaste falling over you at the sheer arrogance you see displayed proudly in his eyes. 

“My name is Y/N, though I confess I’m unclear as to how that’s any of your business.”

An inelegant snicker comes from behind you at that—Carol Danvers, you remember, though you don’t bother turning back to confirm. 

“Perhaps we shoulda been more specific,” Hawkeye drawls with a somber expression, carefully inching forward (all while keeping the razor-sharp arrow nocked perfectly still, aimed unfailingly at your throat) in an athletic stance. “ _What_ are you?”

“A wanderer, nomad… vagabond,” you list off simply, turning on your heel to look the burly man dead in his narrowed blue-green eyes. “Whatever you choose to title it.”

“That’s not what we’re asking, and you know it,” Steve Rogers accuses tersely, stepping bravely forward and leveling you with a steady icy-blue-eyed gaze. 

Your subsequent words filter through gritted teeth as white-hot anger flares low in your gut, fists clenching tightly at your sides: “I owe you nothing, Steve Rogers.”

You don’t miss the way the captain’s left eye twitches reflexively beneath his silly mask at your blasé use of his civilian name; still, he doesn’t back down. (You never deigned to think he might.) “Earth is under our protection,” he tells you, frustration evident in his voice. "We need to know if you threaten that.”

“I have been here a very long time, Captain Rogers,” you counter back without a moment’s haste, your patience rapidly waning. "In that time, I have _never_ isolated myself as a threat to your planet.”

“Yet,” Tony Stark pipes up unhelpfully from your left, and heaven help you but you want nothing more than to turn around and punch that abhorrent goatee off his smug face. 

“Stark’s right,” Steve Rogers seconds (though he doesn’t look all that happy about it). 

“Did’ya hear that, Legolas?” Tony calls in pompous fashion towards the edge of the clearing, where an unsmiling Clint remains with an arrow aimed directly beneath your chin. “Steve said I was right.”

“You guys suck at this,” comes a throaty, distinctly feminine, and entirely _new_ voice from directly behind you; alarm bells ringing shrilly in your brain, you whirl around (and if you use a small modicum of preternatural speed while you’re at it, you’ll blame it on the impossibly surreptitious redheaded woman who’d spoken). And, there she is, standing proudly at the other end of the clearing wearing nothing more than an onyx-black cat-suit (which clings to every one of her figure’s voluptuous curves like a second skin) and a lethal smirk stretched lazily across noble features. 

She’s close—not terribly so, just an arm’s length or two, but the ubiquitous impression of sheer panic mounting in your chest nevertheless remains because, _how the hell did I not hear her?_

“Здравствуйте,” she purrs in an indubitably provocative tone, irises of malachite-green boring keenly into yours. 

It’s all you can do not to stumble gracelessly over your ensuing speech: “I know you." 

The pernicious woman quirks a single immaculately-shaped brow, whimsical amusement dancing in her gaze. “Oh?”

“Natalia Romanova. Former Red Room pupil. Codename: Black Widow."

Her bemused visage does not waver. “Someone did their homework.”

“I find it prudent to be informed.”

Natalia nods slowly alongside your assertion. “And why is that?”

You swallow thickly, mulling over her words. “I do not mean you any harm—I give you my word.”

“What if we aren’t looking for just your word that you won’t cause us harm?” the Widow questions, inching ever closer until you can practically _feel_ the heat from her mortal body against yours, pulsing and warm and _real_. She stands notably higher in stature than you do, you note—though, not by much (perhaps a tomme or two). “What if we want more?”

_Holy_ —

You’re not quite sure what happens, then—all you feel is a sharp pain in your lower back along with an all-too-familiar sensation of cursed, heavily-magicked steel biting into your flesh… and then, nothing. 

Absolutely nothing.

— — 

You wake slowly— _too_ slowly. A throbbing pain at the base of your spine weighs heavily upon your heightened senses, luminous smears of blinding effulgence streak dizzyingly across your hazy periphery. 

And, this too: gradually, you become aware of numerous vaguely-familiar voices quibbling ardently from either side of your prone form. 

(Really, it only serves to render the pounding affliction lingering in your skull all the more dire.)

“What the hell is wrong with you?” one distinctly feminine inflection (heavy with an unmistakably American timbre) demands from somewhere off to your right, her tone sharp with droll indignation. “You could've _killed_ her—"

“Or _she_ could’ve killed _us!_ ” another whiny, vaguely masculine modulation joins in from the left. If you didn’t know any better, you’d have been sure that it belonged to one Tony Stark. 

Still, you do—know better, that is. It can’t be Tony Stark, just as that first voice can’t be Carol Danvers of the infamous Avengers, because—

_Wait_.

Yes, it can. 

You force yourself up into a sitting position (though not without letting loose an ear-splitting shriek of agony from your desiccant throat) and then onto your feet in a hound-like crouch. Anguish spreads like wildfire from the base of your spine unto every other extremity in your being even as your wings flare out to bulwark securely around your crouched figure, successfully hiding all posterior auxiliaries from view—save for your head, regrettably. 

“Jesus!” Tony Stark shrieks when your gaze darts up to burn profoundly into his. The self-proclaimed Man of Iron is without his armored suit, now (though you expect it’s a mere murmured voice command or button press away); instead, he wears sagging denim trousers and a woven sweater, brown eyes wide with something like horror. 

“Shut it, Stark,” Carol Danvers hisses from a mere arm’s length away. On instinct, you back yourself towards the corner just behind you, desperate to keep each of the seven (because of course there must be seven of them now, rather than the six you’d originally begun with) blurred figures from flanking you in any capacity. “You’ve done enough.”

“What—What have you _done_ to me?” you manage to snarl weakly out, cold perspiration dotting your forehead, pain pulsing powerfully throughout your hunched-over form. 

Even still, the scene before you begins to grow more precise and fathomable by the second—though that feels to you a rather hollow comforts, as comforts go. 

You see an abundance of mechanized extravagance littered all around the near-cavernous space: metallic gadgets and industrial wares and complex machinery, most (if not all) comprised of both outdated and contemporary widgets alike. (You think that perhaps this is the infamous Stark Towers—specifically, one of Tony Stark’s numerous private laboratories located on the baser floors beneath the surface.)

You note a makeshift procedural chair inclined at an approximately 1/6 radian’s angle relative to the cemented flooring, its steel-plated back wet with crimson blood— _your_ blood. (The repugnant sight of it never gets any easier to bear witness unto.)

Someone steps bravely forward, then—Steve Rogers, you observe. His brawny figure seems to glitch periodically in your pain-addled perception. He’s changed as well, now donning a pair of modern-day athlete’s trouser sweats along with a tight grey sporting jersey (or, “T-shirt," you suppose). 

He halts his tentative approach when a warning growl escapes you.

“Hey, take it easy,” he tells you, a sort of genuine sympathy in his blue-eyed gaze—sympathy that you might have once thought begrudgingly appealing had he not most certainly played a substantial hand in the bleeding wound now festering painfully at the base of your hips. “You’re hurt.”

“Why?” you spit out, clenching your jaw tightly in some inoperative attempt at weathering the pain currently threatening to tear your body in two. _Fuck, this hurts_. “So you can kill me this time?”

Steve Rogers clenches his jaw tightly even as something like genuine apology flares in his gaze. 

You refuse to believe it, even if only for a fleeting second. “Where did you even acquire Darksteel? You can’t possibly have forged it yourselves; even your Scarlet Witch doesn’t possess that level of wizardry.” (You see the young witch in question, still dressed identically unto your earlier memory, shrink further into herself at the edge of your vision.)

“I got it for them,” Carol Danvers finally speaks up, formerly confident gaze downcast and head bowed with ostensible contrition. 

“Where?” you demand hotly, pain ravaging your frayed nerves. 

Carol Danvers shifts awkwardly from one foot to the other, hands shoved stiffly into either pocket of her worn denim trousers—delaying the inevitable, by all means, something you really, truly do not have time for right now. 

“… Jotunheim” the blonde captain murmurs out eventually, and you hiss instinctively at even the mere mention of it—of course it had to be there, as opposed to Naro-Atzia or Berhert or even _Xandar_. Of _course_. “I didn’t know—“

“But you do now, do you not?” you interject, eyeing her meaningfully. “You know what I am.”

Her despondent gaze comes up to meet yours, then, a lifetime’s worth of remorse shimmering in youthful eyes of chestnut brown. “Yes, I— … Yes.”

“Which is what, exactly?” Tony Stark cuts in, arrogance saturating his testy inflection. 

Were you not grievously wounded at the current moment, you’re sure nothing would have stopped you from swooping the small whiny man up in an iron-clad grip and dropping him promptly into the Atlantic. You settle for a baleful glare instead.

Curiously enough, it’s not Captain Danvers who answers him, nor is it you. 

Rather, it’s the fiery-haired Widow whose sure-footed countenance appeared to stop the world around you upon that very first conclave. She’s all grace and immeasurable poise as she steps forth, still adorned in the same all-black catsuit she had worn whence first you laid eyes upon her. 

“Ты — ангел,” she remarks in silver-tongued Russian, her sage-green eyes unwavering upon yours, causing you to shiver despite yourself. 

It feels right, somehow; Natalia classifying you, that is. (And in her native tongue, no less.)

“T… oy o-angle?” Tony rashly sounds out, clearly attempting a rough translation (and thereby breaking the precious meaning lingering in the moment between yourself and the Widow). It’s enough to make you want to punch him. “What the f—"

“Angel,” Carol Danvers corrects without turning to spare him a glance, her thoughtful gaze heavy upon your crouched, wounded figure. “I thought… I was taught that there weren’t any left.” 

(Her words are uncharacteristically careful; measured.

She pities you, you think—you loathe it.)

“Well, I suppose it's your lucky day, then, no?” you bite resentfully out, your words laced with virulent acrimony as you defeatedly retract your wings and settle down (though not without a great deal of pain) upon your knees atop the cemented floor. “You have the illustrious honor of executing the last of them.”

— —


	2. "tell me a lie"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Tell me a lie,” she says next— _demands_ , really; you rest your forehead against the flat metal beneath you, something altogether anomalous igniting in your chest all the while. 
> 
> “What?” you ask, fighting to keep a neutral tone. 
> 
> “Tell me a lie,” she repeats simply, her gloved hands stilling upon your perspiration-and-blood-slick skin.
> 
> “I am not afraid of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh so i wrote more? also happy valentines day kids if u guys celebrate that kinda stuff?

Steve Rogers is the first one to talk after your (admittedly melodramatic) declaration crouched brokenly down upon the cemented floor—and, ever true to his maddeningly righteous form, his words are absolutely sterling: “We are not going to harm you, Y/N,” he reassures, all saintly understanding and compassionate benevolence, outward-facing palms held up on either side of his well-built torso in an all-too-blameless show of surrender. “We shouldn’t have done so in the first place, and I know it’s hard, but I’m asking you to trust in me when I promise you that we won’t."

(Really, it causes you to wonder if perhaps the powers that may be got it wrong—that maybe you’re _not_ the angel, because quite evidently Captain Steve Rogers could all too easily do a better job of it, provided the chance.

You aren’t quite sure whether that particular realization leaves you feeling resigned or merely embittered.

Perhaps a tasteful medley of both.)

“You want me to trust in you,” you snort derisively out (though your weakened, raspy tone remains decidedly devoid of humor), mustering what little energy remains in you to quirk a single brow defiantly back up at an unapologetically vainglorious Steve Rogers a mere handful of arms’ lengths away. “After not a single one of you hesitated to wound me with a bedeviled steel that very well may have killed me had you chanced a blow any higher.” 

To his credit, Steve Rogers does little more than bravely set his angular jaw and give you a rather curt nod in repose. “Yes.”

(Well—points for effrontery, you suppose; few others would dare be so brazen, so _contumelious_.)

“Well,” you muse, struggling to keep your hoarse tone somewhat even even whilst tepid blood oozes from the base of your spine to soak the snug waistband of your denim trousers, “then perhaps you’re more foolish than I initially thought.”

“C’mon, Y/N,” Carol tries next, moving as if to approach you, then instantaneously halting when you visibly flinch at the all-too-sudden displacement. “Your wound hasn’t been cleaned. It could get infected. Let us _help_ you.”

“Do not address me as your familiar,” you are quick to retort, uncaring of how the female Captain visibly shrivels in response whilst you turn to address her silent counterparts. “How am I to know you won’t take advantage of that opportunity to finish me off?”

“You’re going to pass out from blood loss, anyhow, if you keep this up for much longer,” the Widow reasons then in perfectly-accented English, inching carefully forward and continuing to maintain that moderate pace when you don’t react aversely to her ever-nearing proximity. “What do you stand to lose?”

You clench your jaw tightly, frustration boiling low in her gut even as you _know_ that she’s right—still, that most certainly does not mean that you are under any obligation to like it. “I have one condition.”

Natalia doesn’t miss a beat. “Name it.”

“Only you may touch me,” you murmur out quietly, cogent vulnerability roiling off your beaten figure in pelagic waves (though you’re sure to lace your words with a stringent breed of steel that leaves little—if any—room for negotiation). “No one else.”

“Consider it done.”

— — 

The Widow doesn’t comment upon the myriad of raised pale-white scarring imprinting your sweat-damp skin, nor does she display an averse reaction (or _any_ reaction, really) when confronted with the uneven-circle-enclosed brand (depicting a neatly-stenciled ‘🝗,’ the alchemical symbol for ‘ashes') marring the quivering flesh beneath your right shoulder blade. 

(You like that, you think.)

Rather, she’s all gentle touches and quiet indifference: dabbing lightly at your blood-stained injury with alcohol-soaked cotton, threading a sterilized needle through your torn flesh with meticulously measured movements, periodically checking in to ensure you aren’t in more pain than you can reasonably stand whilst she sets about methodically sewing the gaping wound shut.

It isn’t until she’s near finished, and is expertly snipping the nylon cord with a diminutive pair of surgical clippers held adroitly in a single blue-glove-clad hand (smeared generously with crimson blood), that she speaks up: “Why me?”

You flinch as you feel another damp cotton ball gently swabbing the sewn-shut wound at the base of your spine, tightly gripping either side of the steel tabletop beneath you in a white-knuckled grip and sighing quietly to yourself when you feel the metal giving way beneath your preternaturally-strong grip with a creaking groan. “I wish I knew,” you answer eventually, your utterance quiet (though it echoes audibly around the cavernous space of Tony Stark’s subterranean foundry just the same). 

“Tell me a lie,” she says next— _demands_ , really; you rest your forehead against the flat metal beneath you, something altogether anomalous igniting in your chest all the while. 

“What?” you ask, fighting to keep a neutral tone. 

“Tell me a lie,” she repeats simply, her gloved hands stilling upon your perspiration-and-blood-slick skin.

You swallow thickly to yourself, your pain-addled consciousness positively inundated with scattered (not to mention borderline nonsensical) thoughts—still, you do your marked best to tamp down on your anxieties, consciously relaxing your grip around the metal tabletop (now molded with a rather deep imprint of your clenched fists), before croaking out what you pray to be somewhat reminiscent of a quasi-rational answer: “The prospect of death terrifies me in such a way that little else ever has.”

You hear the slight frown in the Widow’s throaty inflection when she entreats you, “Tell me another one.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

You heave out a soundless sigh, lifting your face from the cool metallic surface and pulling your arms up to cross one atop the other where your forehead once rested, before resting the cleft of your chin deftly atop your forearm whilst you stare contemplatively off into the widget-cluttered distance. “I miss my home.”

Her touch leaves you, then, though you scarcely are given a moment to register the sudden difference before she’s stalking dexterously into your line of vision with all the grace of a powder-faced ballerina at the Bolshoi, hooking the metal leg of a nearby stool and dragging it across the blood-dotted cement flooring (rather loudly, at that) to stand less than an arm’s length from where your prone figure lies, motionless and wary. 

She lowers herself to sit atop the stool, then, bent latex-clad knees askew and shoulders confidently set, her judicious green-eyed gaze intent upon yours—searching, you think (though for what, you don’t quite know).

“Tell me another,” she tells you, leaning forward ever-so-slightly until the two of you are mere tommes apart, and you speculate fleetingly that perhaps this is what dying feels like—a perplexing tightness in your chest, a liquid heat spreading through your veins, an abhorrent feeling deep within your very core telling you that things are about to change. Forever. 

You whisper your untruth oh-so-quietly this time, like it’s a treasured secret equipped with the boundless magnitude to ruin you, to ruin _this_. (And, perhaps in many ways, it is.) “I am not afraid of you.”

The Widow— _Natalia_ —is silent for a long while, then, though that malachite-green gaze doesn’t stray from yours for even the barest of moments. 

You’ve long since lost track of time when she finally speaks (—still, you daresay it proves well worth the wait): “I believe you.”

— — 

A bone-deep ache in your left biceps femoris, dull yet veritably potent, stirs you into hazy consciousness—like a gentle breeze kindling a flame, though this fire burns far brighter (not to mention far more painfully) than all that came before it.

(On one hand, there’s a certain absolution to be found well within the conditional myopia of it all, the all-too-mortal sensation of floundering amidst the great unknown—still, there’s quite unmistakably something unnerving about it, too, because you have never been one to reside in the unknown. 

At least, not in the sense that all other beings were wont to do spanning their time here; no, while they played victim unto the great unknown, reduced to nothing more than paltry beggars at its peerless mercy… you embodied it, both in mind and in the very depths of your blackened soul. 

Now, however… well. 

Now, you are rather hard-pressed to find a single reason you should belong unto one or the other, regardless of past allegiances.)

It’s painful, of course, but the mere presence of the physical strain itself upon your addled mind means that you’re present, infused into the very bones of your earthly form (a curious hybridization of celestial matter and mortal corporeity alike)—which, although presently somewhat impaired, still retained autonomy enough to render both a fight _and_ flight response to be entirely sound alternatives if need be. 

There’s little artificial light present as you wake in an unfamiliar sheltered framework, just a dim yellowy effulgence diffusing from the left of where you lie motionless atop a dubiously pleasant fleece-white bedspread—you’re sprawled rather unceremoniously beneath the wonderfully tepid covers, left cheek mashed heavily into a plush head-pillow (wet at its lower right corner with what you’re loathe to acknowledge is your own drivel drawn from a seamlessly deep slumber). 

Slowly, oh-so-carefully, you push yourself up with trembling arms, peeling off the weighted duvet with a precursory flick of the wrist (you bite back an anguished hiss at the way even the slight movement sends sharp pinpricks of pain through your bandage-covered lower back)—then, you’re creeping scrupulously out from the foreign chaise and swinging bare legs counterclockwise about yourself to settle either foot upon cool polished hardwood approximately just over a calf’s length beneath, pulse thudding viscerally in your ears. 

As you rise unsteadily to your feet, you notice a great many things in a rather brief period of time—well, at the very least, it most certainly _feels_ akin to a great many things (though in reality it’s merely two or three), especially within the formidable confines of your disoriented, pain-and-exhaustion-addled mind: 

Firstly and foremost, there are alien garments adorning your figure—still very much characteristic of earthly raiment, but alien just the same, as they do not belong to you: a curious all-black toga (or T-shirt, you suppose it’s called) emblazoned upon the chest with a circular epoxy-grey emblem bearing a vaguely eagle-like figure in geometric polygons (S.H.I.E.L.D., you gather quickly) and a pair of thin loose ocean-blue briefs that extend only about a quarter of the way (if that) down your scar-ridden legs.

(In the grander scheme of things, your legs aren’t all that visually blemished—not whilst the nausea-inducing criss-cross of endless scarring remains proudly upon the once marble-smooth skin of your spine. 

Rather, it’s just a thin pale-white track-mark here and a notable but diminutive discoloration there, along with a single almost star-shaped divot just above your left knee where the Hunter’s magicked arrow once pierced your temporal flesh—all in all, there’s little to be abashed about, with your torso covered and lesser lower-body scores exposed; still, it’s rather disconcerting all the same, as it was not your conscious decision to make it so.)

Alternatively, you’re in a space that’s rather evidently somewhat well lived-in (though its inhabitant does well to remain neat and unobtrusive)—the pseudo-bedroom in which you stand is tidy, housing what you think to be a closet directly to your left (its mirrored sliding door firmly shut), the aforementioned bed beside you, a moderately expensive-looking nightstand (curiously made entirely of tinted plexiglass) housing a commonplace ecru lamp and a relatively slight throwing knife (its midnight-black sharpened blade glints eerily in the low light), a sleek wooden dresser standing stoutly against the cream-painted wall to your right … and, beyond that, little else. 

There’s a decidedly oversized doorway up ahead (though, you suppose it cannot be called a doorway if there is no door to be had)—perhaps an archway, rather.

Through the archway, you glimpse the telltale staples of a typical earthly apartment—a modest kitchen space alongside a furnished mezzanine, likely equipped with an electronic television and perhaps one of those “Alexis” automations. (… Or, was it “Alexa”? Or instead, that other AI—“Saira," perhaps? “Sira”? You could never be sure.)

It’s empty—it all is, and a quick repeated analysis with a trenchant focus placed upon visuals and audition only reaffirms what you already know to be true: there’s no one here. 

Which you garner to be rather peculiar, if not—

You feel every muscle in your body tense (along with a rather swift ache permeating your lower back for your troubles), because you could have _sworn_ —

“You’re not just going to stand there forever, are you?” comes a droll, vaguely familiar contralto cadence along with a willowy (but distractingly well-shaped) figure dressed all in black sliding nimbly into view. 

You feel your mandible slacken obscenely as Natalia—the Widow—settles herself comfortably in the archway, one shoulder pressed casually to the wall, the rest of her athleisure-clad physique sagging rather lackadaisically in kind. She’s wearing an absolutely shit-eating smirk upon regal, alabaster-pale features (one that might irk you were it anyone else), her shadowed malachite-green irises glinting indecipherably in the soft yellowed luminosity. 

She’s dressed fairly similarly unto you (which leads you to believe that the various cloths covering your body belong to her): thin, tight black trousers (leggings, you think they’re called nowadays) that look as if they’ve been painted onto those shapely legs and a matching black T-shirt (likewise emblazoned with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s rather distinctive trademark) with its sleeves severed in a fashion that appears more DIY (which you’re told is a contemporary acronymic for “Do-It-Yourself”) than anything else. 

Her long, fiery red locks of well-kempt hair are pulled back from her face (while yours remains loose and disheveled from sleep), a slight blush coloring un-powdered noble cheekbones; her feet, too, (nails unpainted but well-manicured) are similarly bare, and she appears unarmed (though you know far better than to take that cursory measurement at face value).

It’s not ideal by any means, and yet somehow you feel almost… safe. _Secure_.

(Even as you know the mere thought is positively laughable.) 

Still, your silence prevails, and eventually, the Widow is again taking something of an initiative (to do what, you aren’t quite sure—that is undoubtedly most terrifying): “How do you feel?”

This time, her words are softer—tempered with an unmistakable note of crystalline-clear candor, as if she truly wishes to know.

“Fine,” you manage to croak out, the single syllable grating uncomfortably upon your decidedly dehydrated pharynx even as another acute stab of discomfort from the base of your spine has you wincing visibly in answer. 

The Widow’s gaze narrows intently upon you, a single brow quirked—evidently, she remains somewhat unimpressed with your admittedly improvident attempts at hiding your body’s malaise. 

“I can tell when you’re lying,” she remarks simply, head ever-so-slightly tilted whilst those keen jade-green eyes appraise you without a single sign of righteous inhibition. “Plus, you kind of suck at it, anyways.”

“Is that why earlier, you entreated me to deceive you?”

The W— _Natalia_ nods slowly, a preoccupied quality drifting over her queenly features. “I wanted to understand… “ she trails off distractedly, her voice nothing more than a quiet murmur.

“Understand what?”

Her ensuing reply is soft but firm: “Why you’d _let_ me see the truth.” 

You frown, liquid (not to mention _painful_ ) heat boiling at the base of your spine all the while. “I’m afraid I do not catch your meaning.”

“You could lie to me, if you really wanted to—you could lie to me, and I’d never know the difference,” Natalia points out, husked tone laced with costly meaning that seems to strike you at your very core. “I shouldn’t be able to tell when you’re lying to me… but I can.”

You fight the cogent urge to shift anxiously beneath her gaze—you believe you grasp where this is going, and you’re not quite sure you’re sufficiently equipped to confront it (much less with an interactive audience, so to speak). 

“Perhaps you are more perceptive than you give yourself credit for,” is the mercurial rebuttal you settle upon—an attempt, a shot in the proverbial dark (and a feeble one at that). You know it, and you know Natalia knows it, too.

It’s there in that sanguine curve of her lips, the way her eyes gleam brightly with the irenic engrossment so unerringly reminiscent of the literary cat which caught the canary. “You’re immortal.”

“Yes, well, unfortunately, ‘immortal' and ‘all-powerful’ are not interchangeable.” You see her gaze flicker briefly down to your garment-clad solar plexus, where you both know the wound marring your scar-ridden skin (at least, height-wise) to be. 

“Clearly,” she deadpans, full lips quirking subtly for a fleeting moment or two into something like a smirk. 

“For how long did I sleep?” you query before she can so much as think to return to the earlier topic of discussion, exhaustion and apprehension and _pain_ compressing tightly around the base of your spine in the most maddening fashion; your heated flesh tingles with an all-too-familiar burn (one far more igneous than that of which you’ve experienced these last several moons) even as you feel a cool droplet of sweat tracing its way languidly down your spine. 

(It feels like fire on your skin, the kind so powerful it baffles the very nerve endings beneath your skin, rendering the sensation of it rather akin unto a thin stripe of tingling heat—almost pleasant, even as it wreaks utter havoc upon your being.)

The Widow looks more bemused than anything else, huffing out a quiet breath before answering in kind: “Thirteen hours,” she rattles off as if it’s of little consequence, caustic green-eyed gaze cataloguing every inch of your body without a trace of reluctance. (You do your very best to school your expression accordingly into something at least vaguely reminiscent of indifferent equity.) “I was rather impressed by it, honestly.”

“I am sorry that I took your bed for so long,” you manage to utter out after a brief silence, genuine apology evident in your hoarse inflection. “I will be healed soon, I assure you.”

“How did you know it was mine?”

You purse your lips, then, contemplating—eventually, you settle for the safest approach: “These are your quarters, are they not?”

(What you don’t tell her is that you can _smell_ her here, that the mild yet oh-so-intoxicating scent of her clings to every last finger’s breadth of space in this modest dwelling—and, her bed? Gods, the sheets are positively _ripe_ with it. 

And, the most troubling part? 

The aroma— _her_ aroma—doesn’t repulse you; in fact, you cannot even find it within yourself to feel even remotely apathetic whilst it permeates each and every one of your heightened senses. 

No, it _thrills_ something embedded deeply inside you, a hopelessly naïve and quixotic piece of yourself you thought forever lost—and, really, though you mourned it in earlier days, you came to say thanks unto that, your hardened nature. 

And, now… well. 

Now, you are no longer quite so sure.)

“On occasion.”

You do not quite know what to say in reply to that, so, in fantastically moronic (uncharacteristically so, mind you) nature, your addled psyche settles for the very first half-formed ideation that comes to mind: “Your bed is very comfortable.”

The Widow sucks in her lips ever-so-slightly, then, a subtle enough micro-expression that assuredly might have gone unnoticed were you not… well, _you_ ; it’s an attempt at hiding the near-imperceptible signs of telltale amusement upon her regal features, and you are quite sure that if she really did not wish for you to see it, you would not have. 

There’s something alleviating about that, you think. (It terrifies you.)

“I’m glad you thought so,” the Wid— _Natalia_ utters out in little more than a whisper, appearing to be more addressing herself rather than you; still, it brings a tired smile to your face even as the pain roars in your chest and the unease roars louder and yet somehow, above all of it, there’s something bigger… something _louder_ screaming uproariously over top the raucous noise, something you’re not sure you would be able to name if it came up to you and physically struck you across the face. 

Still, somewhere amidst the gluttonous opulence of noise and emotion and a hundred other things you don’t understand for the life of you, you manage to stammer out a sentence, a burning question—that very same which had seemed to smolder through each infinitesimal bit of you like a ravenous wildfire consuming a lush sage-green forest, taking and taking and _taking_ until there remains nothing left to do but voice it: “So, what happens now?” 

— —

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really dont know if imma write more cause like i lvoe writing angel!reader cause i love self projection and like 
> 
> but also this does take time outta my day and all that u feel and im trying to do the college thing without dying
> 
> still, feedback is always super super awesome<3

**Author's Note:**

> здравствуйте | _sdravstvuytye_ | greeting (the polite form if addressing someone you don't know, otherwise you'd use привет)  
> ты — ангел | _tuy — angol'_ | you're an angel
> 
> thoughts? (my [tumblr](https://psyches.co.vu/) or just search @ultralightdumbass to come yell at me there!)
> 
> also let me know if i should make this a series cause i've been debating that like hmmm


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